“Of him that hopes to be forgiven it is indispensably required that he forgive.  It is therefore superfluous to urge any motive. On this great duty is suspended, and to him that refuses to practice it the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.”

-Dr. Samuel Johnson, Rambler #184, 24 December 1751.

Dr. Johnson has always been one of my favorite curmudgeons. You may be familiar with his most famous quote, “He who makes a beast of himself rids himself the pain of being a man,” as Dr. Hunter S. Thompson used it on the flyleaf of his benchmark work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Johnson wrote several plays, travelogs, tomes of poetry, scholarly critiques of Shakespeare, political diatribes, edited and published several magazines, and what is perhaps the first dictionary of the English language, where we find these entries:

 Lexico’grapher. n.s.  [λεξιϰὸν and γϱάφω; lexicographe, French.] A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

 Oats. n.s.  [aten, Saxon.] A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

It could be said that Dr. Johnson would be an English version of Samuel Clemons, Rush Limbaugh, Will Rodgers, Noah Webster, and Groucho Marx all rolled into one.

Since I can’t come up with a smooth transition here, I will just dive into the point I think I’m trying to make regarding that opening line on forgiveness.

The question I’m asked most about my line of work is, “Have you ever shot anybody?” and the answer is thankfully, NO!

There have been times where I have had to draw my weapon and make that split second decision to fire my weapon or not, take a life, or risk losing mine if the subject refuses to comply, but I never had to pull the trigger.

I do not relish being in such situations, and I am grateful that they have been far and few between, but I am grateful that I did have my weapon available should need be. This almost was not the case.

When I was a young man, I followed Johnson’s maxim, “He who makes a beast of himself, rids himself of the pain of being a man.”  Without going into detail, I was a dirty rotten imbecile and had more than one encounter with the police, and on more than one occasion, spent some time in jail for petty offenses.

Fast forward several decades, a face-to-face encounter with Grace Himself, a totally changed life, and an unexpected election to public office later, I suddenly found myself in need of possessing a weapon. I didn’t see this as a big deal; after all, I am an elected and duly sworn law enforcement official, so I first went to obtain a carry permit before I purchased my weapon.

Unfortunately, it was a big deal. It seems that simply being elected and sworn wasn’t enough to override the statutes in my state. It seems that there is a statute that says if the penalty for any particular crime included imprisonment up to or more than one year, you are ineligible to obtain a carry permit. It mattered not that I was not sentenced to a year or more, but that the potential sentence is what counted here, and my petty crimes from decades past fell into this category.

After stomping and stammering and having a low grade hissyfit, I wised up and gave some money to a lawyer who told me that there ain’t nothing he could do, but he did advise me that since my legal troubles were from a neighboring state, I ought to see if I could finagle something there.

I made several trips to the county courthouse where my charges were recorded, and talked to a whole bunch of people, who referred me to other people, who referred me to other people, who referred me to the people I talked to the first time, and so on. What I eventually learned is that the penalty for the offenses I committed back in the day were recently downgraded and were now eligible for expungement.

For them that don’t know, “expungement” is what happens when somebody commits some sort of crime, and then has the crime removed from the court records, and it is as if the offense never occurred. Think of an official pardon but without the shady backroom deals and bribes.

As it turns out, it’s a rather simple process, albeit time consuming, to obtain an expungement in this particular state. I first had to dig through the county archives to find my case and gather all the pertinent information. After that, it is a matter of filling out some forms and mailing them certified mail to all sorts of people all over the place. When that is accomplished, you have to make copies of the replies to all the forms sent out all over the place, and send those via certified mail to a totally different whole bunch of people who are all over the place.  Repeat this process in various degrees of repetition four or five more times, and Ta Daaa! EXPUNGENED!

I like doing research, real research that is (as opposed to trying to find stuff on the internet), I’m good at it, and it’s fun.  I have done original research in Presidential Libraries, historical archives, countless libraries, and now in state court records. If memory serves me correct, King Shalom said: “It is the glory of God to hide a matter, and the Glory of Kings to find it.”   I’m pretty sure that Solomon wasn’t talking about doing research in the archives, but hey, I’ll take it anyway.

And yes, there was Glory to be had.

I know full well what I was arrested for, charged with, indicted for, found guilty of, and spent some time away from home for. However, when I found my records, they had a different story to tell.

Suppose my particular thing was, for example, a traffic offense (which it wasn’t) and the crime was driving drunk, going 120 miles per hour over the speed limit in a school zone, with stolen livestock in the trunk, possession of a bootleg recording of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young fighting in the dressing room of the Filmore east, and a broken taillight . . . however, the “official” court documents clearly state that this was only a matter of parking at an expired meter . . .

I have no problem saying that yes, there is some glory going on here.

The penalties for my original charges were downgraded, and I was eligible for expungement. You see, the actual charges were supernaturally changed to an offense of a far lesser degree, which made for an even lesser penalty, and now it was simply a matter of doing the legwork, filling out forms, giving the Post Office a whole lot of money for a whole lot of certified mailings, and after an elongated stretch of time (this is dealing with the government after all), I found myself expunged, my record was wiped clean, as if the incident in question had never happened, and I was able to legally obtain a weapon so I can do my job, protect my life, and the lives of others.

But this is not about the weapon. It’s about the expungement.

During this entire process I realized something that I already know.

I was expunged about two thousand years ago outside the city gates of Jerusalem.

Jesus did not simply “die for my sins.” 

He died as me, and I was co-crucified with him, so I also died on the cross.

I was buried with Him in the tomb, and I was resurrected with Him, ascended with Him, and now am “…seated with Him in Heavenly places.”  All my garbage has been totally and completely wiped away. I have been expunged by Grace Himself, Jesus Christ

Not only that, but when the Father looks at me, He does not see me because I am “…hidden in Christ…”  He now sees the One who brings Him the purest joy, Jesus Christ. (Well, Papa also sees “me,” and I bring him all sorts of joy as well, and so do you, but hey, don’t mess with my metaphors.) When the devil looks at me, again, he doesn’t see me, as I remain “…hidden in Christ…” and he sees the One who brings him fear, anxiety, dread and trepidation. He sees Jesus Christ.

This leaves the devil in a difficult place. If he does not attack me, the kingdom grows. If he attacks me, he loses ground, and the kingdom grows. The only thing he’s got is to try to convince me that I was not expunged at the cross, that somehow I have to earn what I already have; and to distract me into atoning for what has already been atoned for, thus making myself, by my own works, my own co-savior, where I end up taking credit for what Jesus did.

Jesus ain’t having none of that.

He did it all. It’s His blood that expunged us, not our own blood. That whole medieval barber applying leeches thing doesn’t work no more. 

Allright. I think I said all I got to say about this, but I can’t seem to come up with a decent tagline, so with that in mind, I’ll just stop right here.

Thanks for letting me take up some of your time.